


D is for detention

by Kendrene



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: BDSM, Corporal Punishment, Dom Kara Danvers, Dom/sub, F/F, Impact Play, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mistress Kara, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rectrix Kara Danvers, Riding Crops, Smut, Sub Lena Luthor, Teacher Lena Luthor, Teacher/Student Roleplay, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:14:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23593666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrene/pseuds/Kendrene
Summary: Lena Luthor has been part of the teaching staff at Our Martyred Lady’s School for Girls for years now, and her record is absolutely spotless. She's a shining example of everything a teacher should be... until fellow teacher Veronica Sinclair causes her to lose her temper.When the Rectrix offers her a somewhat unconventional chance at redemption, Lena has a choice to make.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 62
Kudos: 512





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a love letter to TheEvangelion's own Headmistress AU. I was so smitten with it, I asked if she would mind me writing my own spin on it with inverted roles, and she was kind enough to give me permission. 
> 
> Enjoy - it just gets filthier from here on out.  
> \- Dren

Unsmiling and harried-looking, Lena marched along the corridors without meeting anybody’s eye. To a passerby, she would have appeared for what she was — a busy teacher, her arms stacked high with books, laser-focused and task-oriented as she walked to her next class. 

The truth was a different story altogether. 

She  _ had been _ heading to the lab on the third floor — in the morning she taught algebra and trigonometry to the girls in second year, in the afternoon chemistry to those in first — when one of the school secretaries barred her path. 

“The Rectrix would like to see you now,” the woman stated solemnly, and drew herself up to her full height, but still came a few inches shorter than Lena herself was. “This very minute.” 

“But, the students— ?” 

“It has been sorted.” The woman’s mouth had twitched as though she’d just bitten into a piece of fruit, only to discover it was rotten. “Mrs. Grant will take over for you this afternoon. Now hurry, Miss Danvers does not like to be kept waiting.” 

“May I at least…?” Lena lifted the books weighing her down, in what she hoped was a self-explanatory gesture. 

“You most definitely may  _ not _ .” The secretary was glaring heatedly enough for spontaneous combustion to occur as a result. Administrative staff was never this abrasive to professors, not unless one of them happened to fall from grace. Which, come to think of it, might be Lena’s exact predicament. “The Rectrix did specify at once.” 

And so she was sent scurrying to the office like a pupil caught wandering the halls after lights-out. 

“Wait for her to call you in!” The secretary had called at her retreating back, perhaps caught by a touch of pity. “You shan’t knock, under any circumstances, you hear Miss Luthor? The Rectrix truly hates that.” 

By the time the last bit of advice was uttered, Lena had turned the corner, and the words came to her ears in the form of an ominous, dwindling echo.

The summons, she reasoned, must pertain to the scene Ms. Sinclair had caused at recess in the courtyard, although Lena begrudgingly admitted part of the fault lied with her too. The detestable sop had cast the bait, and taking momentary leave from all her senses, she’d swallowed it whole. 

She would say as much to the Rectrix, because she meant every part of it in earnest, and ask to be forgiven. Beg for Ms. Danvers’s leniency if need be — and that would hopefully be granted. 

If it were not, Lena knew she stood a real good chance of being fired.

The bell calling the school’s pupils to the last class of the day had already rung, and the cavernous halls were thankfully empty. 

Lena never ceased to marvel at their beauty, the marble staircases, their balustrades polished to a mirror sheen, the low-hanging chandeliers inside the Auditorium, the well-worn wood of the Refectory with its vaulted ceiling and a hearth so big a band of boarding girls could march inside it and easily fit. 

Our Martyred Lady’s School for Girls had been a convent first, a garrison to guard the River Avon after that, but was turned into a boarding school some time after the Restoration, and since then, its prestige had only grown. It was the model institution the rest of the private education system in all of England wished it was, and only the brightest and most promising were allowed to tread its halls. 

It had not always been this way, Lena knew because she had once been in the very shoes the girls entrusted to her care now occupied. Back then, when Mrs. Teschmacher had been Rectrix, wealth was the sole discriminator used to grant admission. Ms. Danvers’s ascension had changed things; the school was expensive still, for those who could afford it, but scholarships were awarded each year to those girls who had merit and could not.

‘ _ Scientia omnibus lucet _ ’ the school’s motto which newcomers found carved above the main gates, was thus being honoured.

Today, however, Lena was far too preoccupied with whatever was to happen to her to marvel at the friezes which adorned the walls of the Administrative Wing, or find solace in the way slanting sunlight hit the stained glass of the windows, flooding the halls with light that was now blue, now forest green, now molten orange-gold. 

If anything, the nuns carved in ceaseless labour by the sculptor’s chisel seemed to stare in disapproval as she passed. The suits of armour standing guard outside of the Treasurer’s shuttered office looked intent to drop their polearms on her head. The books she carried were clutched tighter, pulled to her chest in clammy hands, and swallowing down a first sliver of panic, Lena quickened her steps. It was no use; the stately, pristine atmosphere of the building made her feel like an intruder. An imposter whose deceit was soon to be unveiled. 

And of course, to make things worse, there was the thought of Ms. Danvers herself. 

If every corner of the school conveyed to the onlooker a feeling of unshakeable order, Ms. Danvers was the embodiment of it. Whenever she was sighted outside of her office, the Rectrix was accompanied by a sense of direction that was tangible. She would glide along the corridors, never in a hurry but neither holding back; an integral part of the school — with which she seemed to exist in absolute symbiosis — and yet above it. 

Always, a hushed silence would descend when she made her presence known — on girls and teachers alike — and the quiet bubble following her every step made it easy to divine what part of the school she was gracing with her presence. 

Most of the girls nursed enormous crushes on her person, a fact of which the Rectrix was certainly aware, but nobody would ever dare accuse her of improper conduct, or of taking advantage of that fact. Quite a few members of staff shared the girls’ sentiment too — and Lena’s nightly fantasies forced her to acknowledge that she numbered among those. 

She had long dreamt of being called up to the Rectrix’s office, for one minor infraction or another, and oftentimes she’d pictured herself asking for penance on bare knees. It was a thought that took up plenty of her nights when Lena found herself unable to doze off. She’d attribute the lack of sleep to tiredness, to the pile of tests that took up one corner of her desk still waiting to be graded— but it was all pretense. 

She’d toss and turn, the comfortable mattress offering no rest, the spacious room in the teachers’ dormitory as stifling as a prison, her mind consumed by thoughts of what Ms. Danvers may be doing. 

Ms. Danvers at her desk, dour and single-focused, sleeves rolled up to bare well toned arms as she attended to the necessities of the school. Signing documents that needed her approval, writing letters that had to be written — busy with matters so paramount they could not be left till morning.

Ms. Danvers looking down the open window to the school that slept beneath her feet. An empress surveying her domain, or a goddess intent on protecting it from harm. Ms. Danvers undressing for the night, meticulously folding her tweed jacket, undoing the buttons of the vest beneath and then those holding her immaculate shirt closed. Sometimes, when her imagination ran particularly wild Lena pictured herself as the one disrobing Ms. Danvers — at the Rectrix’s explicit behest. 

Invariably, Lena would give in, and fingers diving in the sticky mess her panties scarcely concealed, she would touch herself to climax — all the while repeating in her head that what she was doing, albeit in the sanctity of her own room, was not proper.

It was.... 

“Naughty.” The Ms. Danvers of her fantasies would agree. “And naughtiness will not be tolerated in this school.” 

She reached the set of stairs that led up to the Rectrix’s office and faltered, coming to a halt. The office, along with Ms. Danvers’s private quarters was situated inside one of the stout circular towers that had been added to the original structure when the convent was turned into a garrison, and Lena had always thought that it was apt for the woman holding office to stand watch above them all, if slightly inconvenient for her infrequent visitors. 

An ancient gargoyle sat next to the steep stairwell, wings folded like a cloak around its massive form. Whenever Lena had been called to the Rectrix — when she was hired, and then once per semester as every other teacher — she would take a moment to pat the creature’s snout, forever frozen in a snarl. It was a fleeting gesture she shared with the stone in secret, a greeting between two individuals who had to keep their friendship hidden. Today, the gargoyle glowered, and under its unmoving gaze Lena dropped her head thoroughly chastised for her wayward thoughts. 

She climbed the tower in a daze, worry and anticipation going to war inside her. Her stomach did several weird numbers; one moment it was sinking through the floor, faster than a lead balloon, the next it filled itself with butterflies, their wings smashing against her ribs. 

Lena crested the stairs aware that she was possibly already running late, and half-expected to find Ms. Danvers waiting by her office open door, pocket watch in hand and mouth curved downward in displeasure. 

What she saw instead — which she did not expect at all — was Ms. Sinclair, perched on the very edge of the uncomfortable-looking bench right outside Ms. Danvers’s door. A spot usually reserved for the troublemakers and the bullies, for the rule-benders and the girls who were discovered smoking cigarettes behind the gardener’s shed. 

Determined to be a picture of civility, and thus seeking to elevate herself above reproach, Lena inclined her head in greeting.

“Miss Sinclair.” She certainly hadn’t forgotten the woman’s hurtful words, nor had she forgiven them, but it would do no good to renew hostilities now, not when a ill-advised flare of her temper had so completely landed her in boiling water. 

Ms. Sinclair gave her a pointed look and sniffed but before things could proceed further, and perhaps bury the both of them under more trouble, the office door was energetically pulled open. 

Lena caught a glimpse of lean strong fingers, the flash of cufflinks, then, Ms. Danvers’s voice drifted to them from within.

“Miss Sinclair, I will see you now, if you please.” While courteous, the Rectrix still managed to sound abrupt. As though they were taking up time that had already been precisely allotted. At the thought of her own turn, Lena cringed internally, and took up Ms. Sinclair’s spot on the bench, shrinking down like she were a mouse trying to sneak past a group of cats starved by the famine. 

Ms. Sinclair’s face had drained of color, and reeling in the heated stare she had prepared specifically for Lena, she raced to do as she was told, the office door shutting behind her with the firmness of the guillotine beheading the condemned. 

All that Lena had left to do was wait.

Aware that fretting over the storm blowing her way would be of little use, Lena directed her attention to the books she’d had to carry up with her. Some pertained to the classes she had to teach, but a few she’d picked from the school library for her private pleasure. The leather-bound tomes were about myths and legends mainly, stories of vengeful gods and warriors, of women guarding swords within secluded forests and fire-spitting dragons. At the very least she tried to, but lines of script which would normally trap her attention, failed to do so now, her eyes continuously drawn to the shut door. 

The wooden panels were too thick for her to hear a thing, but Lena had no trouble imagining the kind of dressing down Ms. Sinclair must be getting. The same she would be subjected as well, soon enough. 

Time slowed to a crawl, then came to a standstill. Daylight waned, the angle of the sun declined until only a few tired and dusty rays remained to feebly illuminate the hall. The Rectrix’s office was traditionally located in the oldest part of the school, and the gloom reminded Lena of the dilapidated temples and haunted ruins filling her books. 

The bell announcing the end of the school day tolled, deep and almost mournful — not the electric one which marked the passing of each period, but the bronze one in the old chapel belfry. 

Lena’s mind drifted, brought back through the centuries by the ancient sound and her eyes fluttered as though she was suddenly finding herself on the narrow edge that divides wakefulness and sleep. 

She was starting to nod forward when the door to Ms. Danvers’s office was pulled open. It revealed a round-eyed Ms. Sinclair — her complexion bore the pallor of a fright, and the sharp eyeshadow she preferred was smudged as though she had been crying. 

So startled was Lena by the unexpected apparition she jolted to her feet, and the little mountain of books fell on the floor with the same bang of a gunshot. 

She expected Ms. Sinclair to remark on the accident — her tongue was like a file — but the woman brushed past her without sparing her a second glance, without really noticing her there. 

Despite the grief she’d caused, Lena felt a scrap of sympathy. The sentiment was short lived and mixed with dread; fear that increased tenfold when Ms. Danvers called her forward. 

She entered the office in a daze, and only realized Ms. Danvers was standing at her back when the door was pushed shut on her heels. 

“Miss Luthor, please.” There was no warmth in the Rectrix’s voice, nor on her face. Only perfunctory politeness. “Sit.” 

Lena approached one of the pair of straight-backed chairs arranged in front of Ms. Danver’s desk, then, realizing she was still carrying all of her books (although she frankly did not remember having picked them up from the floor) she hesitated. 

“You can set those down there.” Ms. Danvers gestured to a smaller table in the corner, already half-buried under a number of old tomes. “Out of the way.” 

Lena did as she was told, allowing herself a few extra moments to gather her wits about her while she did so. 

“Before we both grow senile, Miss Luthor.” Ms. Danvers cracked, making her damn near jump out of her skin. “We have some rather unpleasant business to attend to.” The last was added airily, almost. An entirely contrived afterthought. 

“Yes Ma’am,” Lena answered by rote, and had to fight down a urge to slap a hand over her mouth a moment later. She’d never heard Ms. Danvers addressed that way; she was Rectrix for the staff, whether they were talking to or about her, and Miss Danvers for the students. Anything else, anything  _ different _ , would indicate a tier of familiarity none of them could claim, and was therefore unthinkable. 

The only instance in which Ms. Danvers became Ma’am was in Lena’s dreams, when she knelt naked by the Rectrix chair, bottom red and throbbing from a caning and mouth eager to please. Her hands shook so badly at the intrusive thought she risked dumping the books onto the floor all over again.

She whirled about, an apology ready on her lips, but the expression on the Rectrix’s face counseled silence. 

Even though her eyes were reduced to sapphire slits, Ms. Danvers didn’t look exactly angry. On the verge of it but not quite there, she studied Lena as a hawk would stare down prey when it was trying to decide whether or not a mouse was worth the flight. 

“Sit,” she repeated, this time doing away with the polite facade entirely. “I’d hate to have to repeat myself a third time, Miss Luthor.” 

Feeling all kinds of numb, Lena took the offered chair. She fervently wished she could see her own face in that moment; she was sure her dirty fantasies were written on it in large incriminating scarlet letters. 

There  _ was  _ a mirror in the office, but Lena couldn’t simply ask to take a peek. A full length heavy-looking thing burnished by age. It gathered what little light was left and returned it twofold, bathing the Rectrix’s study in the sunsent’s mellow glow. 

Lena was positively devoured by sheer curiosity. It sat beneath her skin like mites, itching and biting, and urging her to twist around in her seat and take everything in. The other times she’d been called here she hadn't had the chance. On the day of her job interview she simply was too nervous to focus on anything other than the Rectrix herself, and gawking simply would not do while she discussed the students’ progress and her plans for each semester. 

As such, on her previous visits she’d managed only fleeting glances, and her imagination had supplied the rest. 

“Miss Luthor.” Ms. Danvers had taken a seat opposite her without her noticing, and Lena chided herself for the misstep. “I have to confess, I’m deeply disappointed in yours and Miss Sinclair’s lack of judgement.” 

The Rectrix’s blue eyes fixed her in their crosshairs, and the curt smile that slashed through her lips was far too knowing for Lena’s comfort.  _ I know what you’ve been up to every night _ — Ms Danvers’s expression seemed to say — which was of course just another creative way her mind had conjured up to torture her. 

It simply wasn’t possible for Ms. Danvers to know. Until today, Lena’s conduct in the school had been above rebuke, and she had made sure to keep whatever racy fantasies she had all to herself. It was undeniable that the Rectrix was a favorite subject around the institution; her private life a mystery, she was too dangerously attractive not to be. Girls would giggle and blush over her when they thought no adult was around to overhear, and a few of her fellow teachers indulged the idiocy as well. When pressured for an opinion on her person, Lena would deflect, or use her duties as a shield to quickly excuse herself from that kind of conversation. Only to lock herself inside her room, heart punching through her chest as she rubbed herself into a trance and imagined it was the Rectrix’s long fingers curling inside her drippy, twitching hole instead. 

“Do you have nothing to say for yourself?” Lena let out an audible gasp, and realized that, while Ms. Danvers’s lips had been moving, she hadn’t heard a thing. 

“Apologies, Ma’am.” Oh,  _ God _ . “I mean, I—I— didn’t...” A cold sweat clammed her palms, and her breath came in short bursts, not quite filling her lungs. If Mother saw her now, Lena would never hear the end of it. She was a  _ Luthor _ , for God’s sake! But under the Rectrix’s glacial stare, she stammered worse than a newly enrolled student. 

“I am unsure a simple apology will suffice, Miss Luthor. And I would appreciate it if from now on you limited yourself to Rectrix, or Miss Danvers.  _ Mistress  _ Danvers is acceptable as well.” The title was dropped casually, but on Lena it had the effect of a slap. The answering flush in her body had nothing to do with the fact she could lose her job. “Ma’am however is not. You address our office clerks that way, do you not? Don’t your own students say the same to you when they ask permission to speak, or leave the classroom? Ma’am is too ephemeral a descriptor to be of any use between us, Miss Luthor. There can be no misconception in regards to who we are to one another. Do you understand?” 

“I… I think I do Ma— I mean, Rectrix.” 

“Very good.” The genuine beaming smile was a sharp contrast to the frosty demeanour Miss Danvers had kept thus far. Lena Ms. Danvers sounded pleased, as though she had been imparting a much needed lesson, and was impressed with her pupil’s swift results. But, surely, it must be Lena’s mind, playing tricks on her. 

“Now, I would like to hear from you what happened today. Ms. Sinclair spared no details, but I firmly believe one should listen to both sides before the executioner is summoned.” 

Lena nodded, and after she had took one steadying breath, launched herself into an explanation. 

Everything took place after lunch, while the teachers sat together and watched their charges roam the gardens for an hour before afternoon classes began. It wasn’t the first time Ms. Sinclair had taken a jab at Lena’s past, but the anniversary of Father’s death was nearing, and the barbed comment found the right chink in her armour. She didn’t remember much of the rest — her vision had started to swim red and her recollection of events was a puzzle missing pieces. Lena recalled a sudden sting in the palm of her hand, and Ms. Sinclair’s startled scream. 

“I have no excuse to offer for what I did,” she concluded, throat running dry. “And I am not looking for one.” Their scuffle had happened in front of the students, which made it much, much worse. There was no way now, to swipe the incident under the rug, and Lena doubted the Rectrix would choose to anyhow. Scandals during her tenure had been few and far between, but they were approached justly and with surgical precision. What mattered to Ms. Danvers was that the school’s reputation remained spotless, and those who endangered it, be it pupils or members of staff ended up removed.

“There is hope for you yet, then, Miss Luthor.” The Rectrix stood, and ignoring Lena’s gasp of surprise, crossed the room to where she’d left her books. 

“ _ The Iliad _ ,” she mused, lifting up the topmost. “Sir Malory’s  _ Le Mort D’Arthur _ . The  _ Journey to the West _ .” She leafed through the others, before turning back to Lena. “Quite an eclectic taste in books for a scientist like you.” Lena opened her mouth to say something, but Ms. Danvers didn’t offer her a chance to. “Here you teach math and chemistry. You studied within these very walls, before you went overseas. MIT, correct?” 

“Yes, Rectrix.” Lena whispered, feeling as though she were being carefully dissected.

“You are nothing if not logical Miss Luthor, and yet there’s something in you that absolutely isn’t. A quality that makes you thirst for tales of foreign lands and fantastical creatures. The same touch of… unruliness which led you to slap Ms. Sinclair in the face today. Nothing negative on its own,” Ms. Danvers reassured softly. “But combined with ill-advised displays of temper, it’s a conflagratory chain-reaction. Like mixing potassium with water, and it leaves me deeply troubled.” 

“It won’t happen again, Miss Danvers.” 

The pleasant flush turned to stinging shame, and Lena’s gaze dropped to her lap. 

“Won’t it, Miss Luthor? What if a student tests you next? Lord knows some of the oldest can be willful.” 

“I’d never—!” Lena protested and stood, only to let herself fall back onto the chair with her next breath. She had just proven Ms. Danvers’s point. 

“Hit a student? I sincerely hope not. And I believe you, Miss Luthor. Logically, you never would do anything like that. Before today you were all a teacher should aspire to be. But logic deserted you, and look where we are now.” There was no bite or venom to her words — only a truth Lena wished she didn’t have to hear. 

Temper had always run hot in her family. When it manifested it was as abrupt as a summer storm, and nearly as disastrous. Lena had spent most of her childhood away from home between a boarding school and the next, but she remembered smashed glasses of wine and accusations whisper-shouted when her parents thought that she and Lex were sound asleep. 

Lena had thought she had it all under control, but after today she was not so sure anymore. 

“What —- what would you suggest I do, Miss Danvers? If there is any way to rectify my mistake, I— “

“What do you usually do when one of your students breaks a rule the first time?” The Rectrix countered, returning to her desk. She sat and clasping her hands in front of her face, rested her chin on top of them. 

“I… Well, minor infractions see them reprimanded. And for the serious things, there is detention.”

“Detention…” The Rectrix mused, a strange light entering her gaze. The sun had finally given up on the day, and she reached out to flick on her desk lamp. In the amber tinted pool of light, her eyes were sunken shadows. Completely unreadable. “And I suppose the number of days they have to spend with you after classes have ended depends on the gravity of their misdeeds.” 

“Yes, Miss Danvers. Just so.” The direction their conversation was taking becomes clearer, but the Rectrix couldn’t be serious. The mere thought was humiliating, and to add insult to injury, Lena would become the laughingstock of the school.

“Detention, Miss Luthor, seems like a viable option, wouldn’t you say? We shall treat the incident as something to be corrected, and see whether that awful temper of yours can be trained out of you, hmmm?” 

Lena opened her mouth. Closed it. Sat with arms crossed over her chest and fumed for a few minutes. For her part, Ms. Danvers stared placidly on, as though she couldn’t feel her her glaring daggers across the massive desk. 

This was a joke, Lena concluded, a roundabout way in which to thoroughly shame her before she was kicked to the curb. Well, she decided and straightened her back, she wouldn’t have it. Anger simmered, an inch away from boiling out.

“If you wish to fire me,  _ ma’am _ you should plainly say so. I’d never fault you or the school for it. Honestly, that is the outcome I expected when I walked into this office earlier. It will hurt, but it is fair. But I didn’t come here to endure silent mortification, and I won’t be the butt of whatever sick joke you seem intent on playing.” She found pride in the fact her voice didn’t waiver — not even once. 

“ _ Fire _ you?” Ms. Danvers blinked, sincerely confounded. “No, no, no Miss Luthor, that was never in the cards. I have high hopes your attitude can be corrected. After all, school records show you are an overachiever.” Again, Lena flushed under that all-reading gaze, panties sticking to the inside of her thighs. 

“You’re… serious?”

“Deadly so.” Leaving her chair again Ms. Danvers circled the desk, coming to a stop next to the spot Lena occupied. She was taller than most women Lena knew, and unfairly broad-shouldered. This close, she smelled faintly of tobacco and cologne. Lena’s lower belly tightened further. 

“You shall see me every Friday at 6 o’clock, sharp.” Ms. Danvers asserted evenly. “Until I’ve deemed you cured of your bad habits.” 

She couldn’t. This wasn’t happening to her— not really. 

“Unless,” Ms Danvers raised a finger, forestalling any protest. “Unless you really wish to be fired here and now. If that is what you prefer, then I will make it so.” Her sigh was all regret. “Personally, I believe in second chances.” 

Lena wet her lips, but all the moisture in her body had packed up its belongings and moved down South. “And what would this…. detention—” Her mouth curled around the word.”What would it entail?” 

She could not imagine that the Rectrix would assign her extra homework, the way she did her students. The things she  _ did  _ imagine were unseemly and absolutely obscene. She desperately wanted every last one, her anger overrun by lust. 

“Oh.” The Rectrix’s small smile widened and stretched until it was a wicked grin fit for a wolf. “How the time is filled is completely up to you, Miss Luthor. I only require you demonstrate a will to curb your temper.” She paused and let Lena digest the information. 

She wasn’t sure an entire night would be enough for that. Her mind reeled overwhelmed, and Lena had a hard time separating what was happening from her own twisted fantasies. She had dreamt of similar conversations so many times she had lost count, and of the orgasms they had fuelled too. 

Just as the silence was getting too heavy, the Rectrix spoke again. 

“Obviously, there needs to be some public sort of — I dislike the word punishment — but for the well-being of the school you must be reprimanded. A failing to do so on my part would foster envy, distrust. We can’t have that.” She finished sweetly. 

“We can’t.” Lena did her best to remain calm. There were a number of things the Rectrix could do. Dock her pay, slash her hours, summon the board or have her apologize in front of the entire school. She didn’t know what would be worse. 

“I have not decided on it yet.” If the Rectrix meant to be reassuring she miserably failed. “But I will let you know about that by this Sunday’s evening.” 

“And was Miss Sinclair offered the same choice?” Lena couldn’t keep herself from asking. She instantly regretted the small outburst; the smile winked out of existence quickly, like the throwing of a switch, and the Rectrix took a measured step back, the room temperature around them dropping several degrees. 

“No,” she answered curtly. “Miss Sinclair wasted my time trying to blame everything on you. I am willing to forget mistakes, but I can’t abide a liar.” Her tone left no room for further questions. “Back to you, then. What will it be?”

“I would prefer to have a second chance, Miss Danvers.” Her heart seemed hell bent on hammering its way out of her ribcage, whether Lena liked it or not.

The Rectrix nodded as though the outcome was entirely expected. Gossip had it she could sometimes glean people’s intentions before they knew what they would do — perhaps the rumor was not so unfounded after all. Lena hadn’t really known which option she would choose until the words had made it out of her mouth. 

“Then you have an entire week to think of a proper way to demonstrate contrition, Miss Luthor.” Evidently satisfied, Ms. Danvers motioned she should stand, and handed back her books. “I will see you here next Friday evening. Tardiness will not be tolerated,” she added brightly, and showed her to the door. “Have a good night.”

Lena thought the blessing easily doubled as a curse.

_ Detention. _

Outside, the halls were mostly dark and it was late enough that even the cleaning staff had left for the warmth of their respective homes. Lena paused next to the old gargoyle long enough to roll the word inside her mouth. She could taste it; a word of power, the beginning of a forbidden ritual, and body electric, she took the stairs back to her room two at a time. 

Her cunt kept up its throbbing all the way down. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena faces consequences for her actions and loses something that could land her in even more trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back with this one! I'm literally sweating blood on this fic, so I hope you all enjoy.
> 
> \- Dren

The email by which the Rectrix informed her of her punishment arrived on Sunday morning. It was six a.m. on the dot when her phone buzzed, as though Miss Danvers’s inner workings were like those of a handcrafted Swiss watch. Always unerringly on time.

Her nights since she’d been summoned to the office had been restless, but it took Lena several moments to extricate herself from the clutches of sleep, and many more to quieten down the frantic beating of her heart. 

She wanted to know what Miss Danvers had decided. She absolutely dreaded it. 

The verdict turned out to be as severe as could be expected. 

She was barred from teaching for the rest of the semester, her classes given over to Mrs. Grant, which in turn meant that she would relieve the older professor of her duties. Namely, library management and other administrative odds and ends. 

_ It occurs to me Ms. Luthor  _ — the Rectrix’s wrote quite formally —  _ that the dusty silence of the library may offer you a place for the introspection you so sorely need. I advise you not to take the brief suspension as a commentary on the quality of your teaching, for I assure you that is not the case. However, I find myself uncomfortable in leaving any of the girls in your care until a cure is found for the insubordination that afflicts you.  _

In the rest of the email, Miss Danvers went on about her new assignments in detail, but Lena had no heart to read further right that instant. After a cursory check, she dropped her phone back on the night table, and turned her face away from it to stare morosely out the window. 

The sky was paling, starting at the edges, and she lazed in bed, watching the stars grow muted and wink out one after another. Only when the sun was well up in the sky, the light slating obliquely across her quilt causing her to overheat, did Lena summon the will to start her day. 

Her Sunday, which she usually spent reading and keeping abreast of the curriculum after a healthy dose of exercise went past in a blur. She was aware of doing things, but if asked, would have been unable to recount them.

The rest of her week was much the same, with Friday evening looming ever larger on the horizon. A storm Lena could see approach, but couldn’t shelter from. Every waking moment she didn’t spend doggedly carrying out her tasks was used to reflect on what her detention should entail, but even though she thought so hard on it she came near giving herself an aneurysm, Lena found no solution. 

All the things logic suggested seemed too lenient, not enough to make up for what she’d done. And those things she truly wanted Ms. Danvers to be doing to her  _ would  _ get her fired if the Rectrix caught wind of them. 

Her conundrum saw her sitting in the library on Thursday afternoon, chewing on the end of her favourite fountain pen with her personal journal open before her. It had been the sort of sleepy afternoon that was common in the spring when the weather warmed. All the petty grievances that had the time to brew and fester in the winter months evaporated with the sun, and a sort of stately quiet settled over the halls. She’d spent the morning rearranging the school’s extensive map collection, and the only students who’d asked for her help were two skittish-looking first years who had sat in a pool of sunlight at the far end of the room for about an hour, heads together as they whispered and puzzled over their homework before leaving for their next class. 

Lena sighed, briefly pressing two fingers against her temple and directed a stare full of accusation to the blank page before her. 

The page accusingly glared back. 

She’d brought her journal along in the hope that being among so many books would lend her inspiration. What better place than the library, to pen a note to Ms. Danvers in regards to her detention? 

Unfortunately her eloquence ran dry, and the thoughts the rest of the diary was full of — most of which were still directed at the Rectrix — would never do. 

_ I’ve looked to you for your capable direction even before you proposed this, _ Lena had written not two days before,  _ but the guidance that I crave is that of the open hand. Rough and unkind. Something that I know could never exist between us, truly a poor show of judgement on my part. I wonder what you’d think, Rectrix, if you read the contents of this journal. How far from your esteem I’d fall.  _ It was such a delicious conceit to entertain. A terrifying, yet arousing thought. 

Lips pressed into an unhappy line Lena shut the journal and attempted to refocus on her work. 

There was nothing to be done but trust in Ms. Danvers’s judgement. 

She was contemplating writing something as simple as that, and watching dust mites flutter in the buttery light when loud voices drifted to her from the hallway.

“You know these are the rules as well as I,” Ms. Danvers was saying, dismissive and cold. 

“This is humiliating!” A female voice retorted sharply. “The Board will—” 

“The Board has heard of this already, and they are in agreement. Allowing you back to gather personal belongings is a breach in protocol already. Normally, they would be shipped to you, but I’m sure you are aware. Please, don’t make me regret—” 

But Lena wasn’t overly interested in what the Rectrix would regret. The unknown woman had drawn close enough, and now she recognized her.

It was Veronica Sinclair. 

Quickly, heart jumping in her throat, Lena stood, casting about for a way out. There was only one door from which she could escape, the same the Rectrix and Ms. Sinclair would have to use to enter. Because that much had become clear; the two of them were headed for the library. 

While Lena was  _ supposed  _ to be here, she didn’t care to cross paths with Ms. Sinclair again if she could help it. 

Her gaze came to rest on the massive closet which she’d cleared out that morning in her bid to make sense of Mrs. Grant’s very particular filing system, and throwing her stuff inside her messenger bag without looking, Lena darted to it. 

It was spacious enough she’d be able to hide inside it and if she were careful to hold the doors shut from within — the thing was ancient and the hinges a bit warped — she would remain unseen. At least she hoped. 

Lena didn’t bother with the mess she’d left on the desk. The scattered heaps of maps and open catalogues, the loose sheafs of paper packed tightly with her notes would give the impression she was still there, albeit absent at the moment. 

Hers was not the rational behaviour of someone keen on showing they were firmly planted on the path of their improvement, Lena knew, but she couldn’t bear the thought of Ms. Sinclair’s delight at finding her demoted. 

Most of all, she positively abhorred the Rectrix seeing her in her current state, with the blouse and skirt she’d had no time to brush off specked with dust, and her hair gathered in a messy ponytail so that it was out of her face. 

Inside her hiding place it was unbearably warm, the close air thick with musty-smelling wood dust. The documents it had contained were currently piled on one of the reading table, waiting to be catalogued, and the shelves she’d had Maintenance remove once she’d discovered they were woodworm-infested. 

She wasn’t worried about the documents themselves — the tiny pests weren’t interested in paper — but on the great weight the shelves had been supporting. Considering their state it was a miracle they hadn’t given weight. A stroke of luck that she’d decided a bit of physical labour would do her good. 

Lena felt footsteps drawing closer and put one hand over her mouth to muffle the harsh sound of her breathing. Her heart picked up its pace, and blood thundered in her ears, loud enough she was convinced there was no way those outside the closet wouldn’t hear. 

Her chest ached with mounting panic, and her ribs stung as though bruised. Lena wouldn’t be surprised to discover that her skin was black and blue when she undressed for bed, later that evening. 

Ms. Sinclair lingered for a while. She could hear her talk to the Rectrix, a touch more polite if not exactly deferential, but couldn’t quite make out what Ms. Danvers talked about in turn. Only her tone, laconic and flat. Cold enough to make the spring afternoon seem like a dream. 

There was rustling — Ms. Sinclair picking up what personal items she may have left among the books — and they were off again. It was minutes, but the cramps that had started to plague Lena’s tense spine made it feel like hours.

Even though silence had returned, she elected to stay hidden a while longer.

Maneuvering herself into a sitting position without tumbling out of the closet was harder than she’d initially imagined, but she managed and leaned against the wood with a grateful sigh. 

One of the doors had come slightly ajar, and a sliver of light filtered in, languid and dreamlike. 

Lena didn’t know whether it was the stifling heat or tiredness, but soon enough her head was lolling forward, and her eyes were drifting shut. 

She drifted through this half-suspended state for a while, not really sleeping but not entirely awake. Only when sunlight shifted from the colour of molten gold to that of beaten copper did Lena rise out of her stupor. She did so with a gasp, lungs struggling to accommodate the great intake of air. 

Blood slowly resuming its natural flow she stood, weak in the knees after such a long period of inactivity. Lena emerged from the closet like an owl at the onset of dusk. Blinking, head swiveling this way and that to scout her surroundings. The one difference was that she felt not predator, but prey. 

Just as she was wondering about the time, the bell that signalled the end of the school day filled the halls with noise. Lena left the maps and other folders where they lay, planning to come back after dinner and a shower to finish tidying up. 

Outside, the corridors teemed with students and other staff, but Lena only waved to those she was well acquainted with and quickened her pace. She had a few among the teacher she could count as friends, but their commiseration was the last thing she felt she needed at this moment — no matter how well meant. 

It was in her room, whilst emptying her bag, that she realized her diary had vanished. 

Breath seizing in her throat, she rushed back to the library, hope of recovering her missing journal setting alongside the sun.

It was gone.

It was gone and she didn’t know who, between Veronica and the Rectrix, held it in their hands now. 

She retraced her steps to her quarters in a trance, as though she was sleepwalking through the darkening halls. Aware that she received a few strange looks from the staff passing her on the way out, but uncaring. Her face must have been the picture of horrified shock for them to gawk at her like that, but Lena felt only a flit of concern for it. All of the worry she was capable of was reserved for the loss of her private diary. 

If Ms. Sinclair — Veronica — had it, she’d use it to strike Lena down in a matter of days. By now she must have learned that Lena hadn’t been laid off, but presenting her writings to the school’s board of directors would see to that. Ms. Danvers may have been able to shield her for that which she’d already done, but none of the esteemed families who sent their daughters to attend this sacred institution would put up with Lena teaching them if they were told... 

If they knew how she dreamt of pulled up skirts and rulers striking flesh. 

Lena managed to reach her room before the need to throw up the contents of her stomach struck her. She stumbled into the bathroom and sank to her knees, hugging the cold porcelain of the toilet as though her life depended on it. 

She retched until it felt her soul had been dredged up as well and then slumped, empty and lightheaded with her back against the wall tiles. 

Time passed, and light was leached away from what remained of the day until her eyes could scarcely see. It was for the best. Lena didn’t care to catch her wretched reflection in the mirror. 

Eventually, she picked herself back up and got ready for bed. Dinner was out of the question — at the thought her stomach flipped not unlike a ship capsized — and the scalding shower she subjected herself to did little to assuage her fears. 

She was faced with blackmail, or disgrace and if it were Ms. Danvers reading her journal, sat beside the fireplace in this very moment.... 

The room swam viciously around her and her heart sank through the brick and mortar of the school until it struck the ground beneath it. 

Hot tears pressed behind her eyelids, a tide ready to drown Lena in bitter salt. She set her jaw, back teeth grinding to fine powder in her mouth and refused to let them fall.

Tears would not serve her, but a full night of sleep would.

Of course, she didn’t get that either. 

Friday morning dawned grey and rain-afflicted, and much colder than Thursday afternoon had been. Lena welcomed the vagaries of the weather. They suited her dark mood just fine. 

Again, she was woken at 6 a.m., but this time the buzzing of her phone was almost lost among the sound of a downpour clattering against her blinds.

_ Remember Miss Luthor, _ the email read.  _ 6 p.m. sharp. _

Lena let the phone drop onto her stomach with a groan. She was doomed. She was done for.

The day flashed past her, practically at the speed of light. She finished what she’d left behind the day before, and helped the students who meandered to the library. As always, the numbers increased before the weekend, the pupils keen to take out any material which could help them with their homework, and Lena was glad for the soft, respectful murmur filling the high-ceilinged space. 

It blotted out her other thoughts.

Before the loss of her journal, she had been keen to visit the Rectrix’s office come six in the afternoon, but now the inexorable advance of the hands on the grandfather clock that dominated one corner of the room haunted her with dread. 

She stood as one of Prince Prospero’s guests, except that she knew there would soon be a reckoning. 

Still, when the clock struck the allotted time, its deep, almost mournful tolls echoing among the books, Lena near jumped out of her skin. 

The day had been so dark and dreary she’d not noted how quickly time had passed, and now she was going to be late. By only a handful of minutes, to be fair, yet she didn’t think Ms. Danvers would show her any leniency.

After all, the Rectrix had been quite clear. 

When she made it to the woman’s office, Lena was winded. Lungs burning with the effort of climbing the stairs two steps at a time, she paused outside the office door and drew a shaky, stilted breath. She wished she had the time to duck inside the nearby bathroom and wipe perspiration from her face, but every second slipping past the appointed time put her in danger.

“Come in.”

The Rectrix’s reply to her knocking gave no clue in regards to her mood, and Lena was left wondering for several more minutes after stepping inside the office. 

The Rectrix’s attention was fixed on a document in front of her, blue eyes narrowed in concentration as she wrote. 

Lena couldn’t help but admire the elegance of her handwriting, each word formed precisely so, the script tight yet flowing. It exuded a sense of purpose, just as the woman behind it did. 

She took the few precious moments she was being unintentionally afforded to cast secretive glances all around. 

The office appeared surprisingly close to what she’d imagined it would look like. The walls were lined with massive bookshelves, and as she glimpsed some of the titles worked in thread-of-gold on the book spines, Lena couldn’t help a flutter of excitement. Oh, what she would give to curl next to the roaring fireplace with any of those treasures! 

Maybe, if she were a good enough girl, Ms. Danvers would allow it. 

The thought proved to be incendiary, and cheeks bright with embarrassment, Lena quickly averted her eyes. Luckily for her, the Rectrix wasn’t paying her any mind, still intent on penning her own thoughts to paper. 

The rest of the spacious office was stately and ancient. A sacred place, to be revered like the apse of a cathedral. Wood dominated every corner, but while she’d expected the rich, imposing hue of mahogany, gold oak met her gaze. It lent the room a near ethereal glow, the polished surfaces gleaming with an amber veneer in the erratic light cast by the fire. 

Warm, like an afternoon daydream, and bright enough to make her think the Rectrix had found a way to trap the sun within her furniture. 

The vaulted ceiling was no less splendid, painted as it was with a rendition of the night sky and its constellations. These were picked out in gold leaf, and even though the fresco was marred by the unscrupulous hand of time in places, its beauty shone unblemished through the centuries. 

“You’re late, Miss Luthor.” The Rectrix’s voice fell between her shoulder blades like the strike of a rattan cane. “I am not pleased.” 

Lena ducked her head, utterly mortified. 

“Miss Danvers, I—” She began, and immediately halted. The lancet blue of the Rectrix’s eyes had hardened, as though she was daring her to summon an excuse. “There’s no excuse for my tardiness,” Lena whispered, dry-mouthed and quavering with shame. “Save perhaps that I was so absorbed in my duties I forgot to check the time.” And so terrified the Rectrix had found and read her diary she did not want to come. That truth, Lena swallowed down with much difficulty. 

“I expect you to be more aware of your schedule, going forward.” Ms. Danvers’s curt smile was akin to a predator flashing its fangs before prey was devoured. “I am pleased that the library suits you, Miss Luthor. However, your attention should be equally divided among your tasks, so that you are never derelict in your duties.”

“Yes, Miss Danvers.” 

“Good. Sit then. There are a few things I’d like to discuss before we begin.” 

And there it was. Lena could see it already in her mind’s eye. The Rectrix pulling her diary out of a locked drawer, an expression of thinly veiled disgust shadowing her face. Surely, the document she’d been writing so carefully was Lena’s resignation letter, and she would be asked to sign it. 

As if to confirm her deepest fears, Ms. Danvers said.

“I’m truly disappointed, Miss Luthor. I thought my instructions were quite clear, but even though one week has passed, you failed to let me know what your detention should entail.” 

_ Oh _ .

“I—” Lena briefly closed her eyes, and bit the inside of her cheek, trying to keep her own voice steady. “The truth is, Rectrix, I could not imagine anything that would suffice in making up for my mistake. There’s no… adequate punishment for what I did.” But there was. “I lifted a hand in an act of violence and I… I don’t know how to come back from that.” 

“I presume you are familiar with Socrates, Miss Luthor?” The Rectrix sat back in her chair, and as she waited for Lena to reply, meticulously rolled up the sleeves of her immaculate white shirt. Lena came close to self combustion at the spectacle. There was something disturbingly erotic about the bare forearms of a woman who meant business. 

“Yes,” she stumbled over herself in the hurry to mask the little pause, “I’ve read Plato’s words about him.” 

For the first time that night, a truly genuine smile was bestowed upon her. Lena blinked, almost blinded, and wondered what she could do to make the Rectrix smile that way again. It had been like sunlight, peeking through menacing storm clouds, and the sight had filled Lena with immeasurable heat.

“Then you must know of the principle of the ‘ _ docta ignorantia _ ’.”

“The Socratic Paradox,” Lena nodded, reassured that she was treading on familiar ground. “Socrates claims to be wiser than others because he does not purport to know which he does not.” 

“ _ Precisely _ .” The Rectrix’s eyes twinkled with something close to approval. The most adorable dimples formed at the corners of her mouth when it stretched into a smile. Lena ached to kiss them. “You admit your ignorance, Miss Luthor and are thus wiser from it. I would be more worried about you if you pretended you had all the answers to your plight. Still, you were asked to do one thing for me, and didn’t. A note explaining what you just mentioned would have done the trick.” 

“Rectrix, I’m—”

“Sorry?” Ms Danvers stood and strode right past her chair, like a perfunctory little streak of lightning. “Oh, you shall be sorry, Miss Luthor. I will see to that. Come.” She curled a finger and Lena followed, as though pulled by an invisible string.

“Since you couldn’t think of anything Miss Luthor, now you have no choice but to trust in my  _ capable direction _ .” 

Lena’s throat seized up, and she was bent over by a sudden fit of coughing. Those words… They were verbatim from her private journal. Would Miss Danvers be this cruel? 

Could she be? 

“Miss Luthor?” A solicitous hand closed around her shoulder, steadying her. When she peered up, through a hazy veil of tears, Lena was surprised at how close the Rectrix was. More stunning still, was the clear concern written on her face. “Lena?” God, but she had never called her by her name before, and it was glorious. “Would you care for a glass of water? Or are you unwell? In that case—” 

“No, no. Miss Danvers.” Despite the out she was being offered, Lena was consumed by the need to know what the Rectrix had in store for her. Aroused by it as well, and by the way Miss Danvers had softened, if just for a moment, affording her a glimpse of the woman hidden beneath the hallowed title that she bore. 

She couldn’t know about the diary and be this kind, Lena reasoned. It just did not add up. 

Veronica must have it. 

“I’m fine,” she reiterated when it was obvious Ms. Danvers didn’t quite believe her. “I have been reorganizing dusty documents all day, it must have irritated my throat.” 

“Well then.” When the Rectrix took her hand away, Lena mourned it deeply. “Here’s what I’d like you to do for me.” 

She gestured to a blackboard Lena hadn’t noticed until now.

“The shame you feel for what happened is commendable.” Striding forward, the Rectrix picked up a piece of chalk and offered it to her. “But there’s no benefit in self-flagellation. Best to write it out so it doesn’t fester. Guilt, Miss Luthor, rots one from the inside unless it is excised.” She paused, and chuckled to herself. “Trust me when I say we will not stop until it is removed from you.” 

The terrible way her eyes gathered the light as she spoke, chilled Lena to the bone. The Rectrix’s words resonated within her, the menace they contained as well as their promise, and her body quickened. This was the kind of stern guidance Lena had yearned for; that which offered shelter and furious retribution. The open hand and the closed fist. A therapist would say it was the lack of a true parental figure that made feel her this way, but right at this moment, Lena didn’t care for psychoanalysis.

She became again convinced that the Rectrix had her diary, but somehow, it didn’t bother her as much as it should have. 

As though she had been separated from her body, Lena watched her fingers close around the chalk.

“‘ _ Anger does not control me _ ’ Miss Luthor. I want you to write that out for me a thousand times while I work.” Ms. Danvers moved back to her seat as she talked and picked up her gold chased pen. “You have two hours.” An hourglass was placed upon the desk, the fragile-looking vessel brimming with pinkish sand. It was tasteful, handcrafted to be sure. Grains of sand started to fall, ever so slowly, glittering like diamonds in the firelight.

When Lena didn’t move, the Rectrix’s blue eyes precariously slitted.

“Did I stutter Miss Luthor?” 

“N— no, ma’am.” Lena screwed her eyes shut, and waited for the inevitable scathing reprimand. 

“Then get on with it! You will soon discover how quick two hours can go by.”  _ That _ did sound like a threat, and Lena leapt back to the blackboard, thoroughly flustered. 

The task she had been given was disappointing in its simplicity and Lena couldn’t help but feel a little let down. She’d assumed that, privy to her dirtiest secrets, the Rectrix would bend her over the desk and cane her raw. Heat jolted through Lena, and she gasped a tiny little sound, chalk slipping from suddenly nerveless fingers. She caught it before it could fall and break to pieces on the floor, but the damage to her writing had been done. The tip of it had screeched an wavy line down the part of the blackboard that was still empty, and there was no way for her to work around that. 

She cast about for the duster, but couldn’t see one.

“No, no, no, Miss Luthor.” The Rectrix appeared at her side, as if conjured from thin air, and Lena’s shoulders jumped. 

Paying her no mind, Miss Danvers produced what she’d been looking for and with quick, regular strokes cleared the blackboard. All of it. “From the beginning, please. Anything less than perfect will not do.” 

Perhaps the work was not so menial after all. 

For a time she wrote in perfect silence, aware of how the Rectrix’s eyes lingered on her back. Ms. Danvers’s gaze made her skin itch under her blouse, and her thighs tense. Despite the wetness sticking her panties to her sex, Lena’s hand was neat. Unwavering. She lost herself in the tediousness of words written over and over until she moved by muscle memory alone. She hadn’t realized how calming hypnotic repetition could be, how soothing on her internal turmoil. 

Ms. Danvers definitely knew what she was doing. 

Her mind drifted sleepily and the occasional thought formed in her head so languidly it did not disrupt her newfound inner peace. 

So immersed was she in the motion of the chalk over the board, she didn’t notice the Rectrix approach until the woman was nearly pressed against her spine. 

“Your handwriting is very elegant, Miss Luthor.” The compliment was whispered warm and damp against her ear. “I’m impressed.” The chalk faltered, caught on the surface of the board with a high-pitched, ugly sound, breaking the flow, and Lena groaned. 

“Pity.” Ms Danvers’s  _ tsked  _ and grew tight jawed. “From the beginning again, if you please.” 

The same scene repeated several more times, always when Lena was on the cusp of being done. She wrote frantically, faster, abandoning finesse to favor speed, but that did not fly either. 

She could practically  _ feel  _ the storm gather at her back.

“Time’s up.” The Rectrix announced abruptly, causing her to gulp down air the way a drowning woman does. With lungs burnt out and struggling. Suffocating as she’s pulled under the current and into the depths’ watery embrace. 

Lena let her arm drop, almost brought to tears. Her fingers ached from so much writing, and her hand and wrist spasmed with painful cramps. Trying to hide the gesture with her body, she surreptitiously massaged the crippled limb, wincing when blood started to flow back to her extremities. 

“We shall try again next Friday, Miss Luthor.” Ms. Danvers wet a towel with water from a small flask and handed it to her so that she could wipe her hands clean of the white, powdery residues. “I am not one to give up simply because the task is a complicated one, and I hope neither are you.” 

“No, ma’am — I mean — Miss Danvers.”

It had been the most awful two hours of her life, and the idea of doing it all again in a week’s time made Lena want to scream. She was shamed down to a cellular level, and beyond aroused at the same time. Tendrils of heat snaked from her core to wrap around her spine, and once she was back into her quarters, Lena knew she would have to do something about it. Fuck herself into a stupor and fantasize of all the things Ms. Danvers could have done to her and hadn’t. 

She folded up the towel and placed it over the back of the chair she had sat on in the beginning, faltering the moment bright blue eyes locked with hers. 

The Rectrix was looking at her like she could see every last one of her thoughts. As though she could tell what Lena would be doing when she was alone and where her hands would be. Then, one of the slow burning logs cracked in half within the fireplace, with the sound of a discharging gun and the spell was shattered.

“Next Friday then, Miss Luthor. I look forward to it.” Ms. Danvers pulled a folder from the pile that waited on her desk and opened it, flicking her gaze up when it became apparent Lena was not going to leave without explicit prompting. “You’re dismissed,” she said, and that was that.

***********************

The day of their next session was, if possible, fouler than the past Friday had been. The weather lashed the school as though it held a grudge against it, the ancient buildings creaking and moaning under the combined onslaught of wind and driven hail. 

The power had gone out mid afternoon, putting a stop to all teaching activities, and Lena had been called up to the Rectrix office two hours earlier than expected. 

She climbed the steep stairwell with her heart caught between her teeth, a wavering candle her only source of light. The scowling gargoyle jumped out of the gloom like the very devil, and she let out a startled scream, ears reddening so fast at her own stupidity they felt about ready to fall off. 

Just like the other time, she was presented with the blackboard, and again she failed miserably at her assignment. 

This Friday, however, she was not to be dismissed.

“I shan’t fail in correcting you, Miss Luthor, no matter how long it takes.” 

The Rectrix called her back toward the desk, and as thunder crashed over the rain-drenched gardens, she was told to stand to attention before it.

“Now, since this method doesn’t seem to be of use, we will try something else. Something more… traditional.” 

Ms. Danvers walked to a small cabinet and threw one door wide open. The shifting orange flames were too weak to illuminate its contents, but Lena was invaded by a sinking feeling all the same. 

“I find that pain is an extremely useful tool in sharpening one’s mind. Wouldn’t you say?” 

“I wouldn’t know, Rectrix.” Lena didn’t like how close her voice was to its breaking point. She swallowed and tried again. “I’ve never truly considered such a thought.”

“Haven’t you now.” Ms. Danvers turned toward her, and her eyes were those of a falcon contemplating mice. “No matter. I promise you and pain will be well acquainted by the time the evening is done.” 

A slipper was lifted in her hand, and a manic sort of laugh left Lena’s throat before she could prevent it. 

“Looks innocent, doesn’t it?” Ms. Danvers’s words were the hiss of the razor scraped against the leather strop. “I assure you that it’s anything but.” She worked the slipper through the air a couple of times, the cured leather whistling as it parted it. 

“Skirt up, Miss Luthor. And panties down around your knees.” 

Lena blinked, and felt all breath squeeze out of her in a rush.

“Excuse me?” 

This was the moment she had yearned for. The act she’d written about in lurid detail within the confessional of her most secret diary. She wanted it with every fiber of her being, and yet the Rectrix’s words had the effect of gasoline poured on her self-worth. This was obscene. It was sexual harassment. It was immorality of such a magnitude her heart skipped several beats as she contemplated the import of it all. Surely she had misheard. 

Ms. Danvers would never.

She couldn’t.

“Please, Miss Luthor. Show that you can follow at least  _ some _ directions.” Miss Danvers sighed, and pressed slender fingers to her temple, as if she were trying to ward off an incipient headache. “I dislike having to repeat myself, and I will add more strikes to the number you so clearly deserve every time you make me waste my precious time in doing so. Are we understood?” 

“Yes, Rectrix.” She could not believe her own ears. She definitely wasn’t agreeing to this, was she?

“Excellent.” Ms. Danvers strolled behind her and out of view. “Then, proceed.”

Cheeks burning a hot shade of crimson, Lena did as she was told. A pervasive sense of disjointment washed over her. This was happening, but truly, it must be happening to somebody else who just happened to share a likeness with her. 

“Bend over the desk,” Ms. Danvers instructed once her ass was naked, and her clenching sex ready for inspection. “Show me how contrite you are.” 

Not believing she was actually moving to comply, Lena planted her elbows on the surface of the desk and stretched her spine forward until her stomach was flattened to the wood, her cheek buried against it. Her ass rose higher as a result, and as her cunt came in full view, clear fluid gushed from her slit naming her outrage for the utter lie it was. 

“My, my.” The Rectrix made a low, guttural sound deep in her throat. “Not as virginal as you pretend to be, are you Miss Luthor. Quite the filthy thing, on the other hand.” 

“Miss Danvers I don’t think this is professional.” Lena managed, halfway between a protest and a whimper.

“Quiet!” The Rectrix barked, so fierce that Lena tried to burrow into the wood. “We both know it’s what you want, so spare me the empty platitudes Miss Luthor.” There was a pause, and Lena heard her getting closer. She could already feel the kiss of the leather on her flesh, and her cunt fluttered, betraying her dark desire. 

“Isn’t it true?” The Rectrix’s hand tangled in her hair, carding it gently. “Isn’t it what you wrote a whole diary about?” 

“Yes!” Lena cried out, desperate for anything to happen. She couldn’t endure being on the precipice a moment more. 

“Then let me give it to you.” 

The slipper fell against the upturned curve of her ass, as inevitable as an avalanche tumbling downhill, and Lena woke. 

It took her a moment to remember where she was, the dream so vividly impressed upon her mind she felt pain radiate from the spot her dream-version of the Rectrix had hit on her behind. 

Something had woken her up, and brain emerging sluggishly from sleep, she recalled a noise. A soft  _ thump  _ against her door, distantly heard.

She found the source of it, right outside, the hallway cold and still fully immersed in nightly shadows. A brown envelope had been left for her, and the thump had been caused by it falling over. 

She opened it by the incandescent radiance of her desk lamp, uphending its contents on the table. Her diary tumbled out, the string that held it closed placed in the exact way she’d left it. There was no way to tell whether the knot had been tampered with. 

Still, her blood ran cold.

The Rectrix had had it all along. She’d read it. She must have.

She  _ knew _ .

They would have to talk about it after all. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena confesses to what she shouldn't making things more complicated for herself and the Rectrix both

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back with more of this nonsense! 
> 
> Mild TW for parental abuse.
> 
> \- Dren

Kara lingered inside her office longer than it was customary, even for someone used to working well into the night like her. She truly couldn’t help it; always something demanded her attention, be it the students, or a report from the Treasurer, or one of the teachers reaching out for advice on particularly problematic pupils. 

But tonight, what kept her at her desk was a veritable mystery. Ms. Luthor had left her office hours before and close to breaking, green eyes shining with tears she could scarcely conceal. Part of Kara felt guilt over being the source of her upset, but she also knew the process to be a necessary one. 

Ms. Luthor’s inner demons had been clearly visible in the taut language of her body. She’d done her best to keep her frustrations on a leash, and at times she had even succeeded. But eventually, emotions got the best of her and led her to tangible mistakes. A spelling error on the blackboard could be forgiven, but striking somebody in anger would not be — no matter how deserving Ms. Sinclair had been. 

Kara’s eyes roved over what remained of Ms. Luthor’s valiant efforts and she sighed. The person she could be, if freed from the shackles of her anger… The realization her thoughts were lingering on the younger woman more obsessively than they ought to caused a hard turn of her mouth. She would need to have a care. Lena Luthor was an extraordinary being — even though Kara had an inkling she wouldn’t agree with the assessment — and she had no trouble seeing how one could grow to care for her beyond what would be deemed as proper. She would have to make sure the lines didn’t get too blurred for both their sakes. 

Her eyes wandered from the blackboard to the dying fire and back again, mind drifting tiredly along before it inevitably reverted back to the unruly teacher.

Anything, Kara excused herself weakly, to delay dealing with the object in front of her.

The notebook she had found abandoned on a table inside the empty library glared up from her desk. She could not decide on what it was — well aware that opening it would settle any doubt but hesitant to do it. 

It was leatherbound, and finely crafted. Hefty when she lifted it up to examine the outside just one more time in search of initials, even though she knew that there were none. 

In the end, after she had memorized the way the strings holding it shut were knotted, Kara did the only thing she could. A tiny voice reminded her she’d fired a staffer in the past year for this same type of infraction. That time, however, the woman had been going through the girls’ belongings with the intent to steal. Kara was trying to figure out who this journal belonged to, so that she could return it.

They were entirely different things.

She opened it up, with the distinct feeling in her stomach that it would bring her nothing good.

It was innocuous enough in the beginning. Pages upon pages of finely detailed sketches. The school, the gardens. The gargoyle by the stairs that led up into her nest. And then, people. Teachers and staff, and the crowd of parents that saw their children off during induction. Several sketches of  _ her _ . Everything was carefully dated as though the nameless artist measured the passing of time by what they saw. Her portraits grew more frequent as Kara leafed through the pages, in search of any piece of writing that could lead her to the owner of the misplaced diary. She had settled on the notebook’s function at the very least — small progress, but nothing to sneeze at. When she finally came across some written words, she immediately recognized the handwriting. She read the same elegantly wrought letters on the regular, whenever Miss Luthor sent her a pile of student reports for her approval. She could see them in stark white upon the blackboard. All she had to do was raise her eyes.

Kara knew she should have closed the diary there and then, especially in light of the ways she’d offered to help the troubled woman, but just couldn’t stop herself. 

She skipped ahead several pages, telling herself a few more lines would do no harm, and then her eyes fell on her own name. 

Kara read and burned, and could not have been more wrong. 

It was… filthy wasn’t the right word for it. It was honest and raw, full of things that could never be but that would not hurt anybody if they were left on paper. There were more sketches in between the words, and her eyes paused on a certain one with something close to fondness. Before she’d realized what she was doing, Kara was tracing the lines of the drawing and thinking…

She threw the diary down and pushed it shut, staring at it through slitted eyes, the way one would be staring down a viper. 

Blurred lines, indeed.

It was private and it was personal and she had no business reading it. It now occurred to her she could have had a notice hung upon the board in the common room, and the owner of the journal would have known and come to claim it. 

Kara did the strings back up with shaky fingers, eyeing the knot critically for any sign of tampering. When she was satisfied she thrust the diary inside an envelope and stood. She held it at an absurd angle, arm outstretched, fingers grasping the envelope by a corner as though what was inside it was not a notebook, but a weapon that could cut her. 

(In a way, its contents already had, but she wouldn’t know until much later)

She would leave it by Miss Luthor’s door, and knock hard enough to wake her up so that she would find it right away.

She would pretend she’d never seen it, and that was that.

Her stomach was twisted into knots all the way to the teacher’s room.

***

When  _ actual  _ Friday finally arrived, the weather was so similar to that which she had dreamt, Lena had to pinch herself to make sure she was awake. She did so without a second thought, and only when a stinging bruise darkened her forearm did she start to believe she was not trapped inside an endless loop of dreams. 

She’d spent the entire week in a daze of her own making, torn between writing to the Rectrix to call their agreement off and flinging herself from the bell tower in shame. The latter was no actual desire — Lena simply felt profoundly wretched, like a lass on the craggy coast of Ireland looking out toward the sea to spot the ship their lover would return on. The not so negligible difference was that she was waiting for the guillotine to drop. The spray of blood and the numbness that would follow would surely be a relief compared to this. 

It didn’t help that she picked books to read that just worsened her condition of despair. Hawthorne had always been a favorite, but now his words took another, more sinister meaning. Normally, Lena would have unburdened to her diary, which by virtue of being an object was the most attentive listener one ever could desire, but the mere idea now caused her violent loathing.

If before its loss and swift return the diary had been her inseparable companion, it had now become a source of nervous breakdowns. Lena’d taken to carrying it around wherever she would go — even to the teachers’ bathroom between bells — but it was akin to having a scarlet letter branded on her breast. Whenever she slung her messenger bag over one shoulder before heading to the library to carry out her duties, Lena imagined it was heavier than it had a right to be, as though the obscene truths contained within the innocuous-looking pages of her journal had acquired the specific mass of bricks. The stones of shame she’d be pelted with if anybody but the Rectrix ever found out. 

She tried to leave the journal in her room, nestled among her other books, but the trick worked only for a few, terror-laced hours. By the time Tuesday was done and dusted and folded away to be brought out another week, Lena was racing to her room, heart beating so hard it was a wonder her chest wasn’t gaping through and through. 

Every shadow made her paranoid, every scratch of mice within the walls caused her to think someone was trying to break into her quarters to peep at the journal and make a mockery of her. Lena began to eye every passing student with suspicion — or as though she was seeing a gathering of spirits. Did their whispers stop when she appeared, just to pick up when she was gone?

Did they have an inkling? Did the other teachers know? Some said the school’s very walls had ears. Did they mutter Lena’s dirty secrets to each other in the night, stone to mortar to column to door jamb while everybody was asleep?

_ Did anybody know _ ?

Worst of all was the fact that when she was trying to rest and read a little in her room, the diary couldn’t be shaken from her mind, not even for a second. It had to be always in full view. Lena tried to hide it under her bed, inside her closet, beneath a floorboard she’d managed to work loose. All to no avail. 

It had to be placed on her desk just so, with her favorite fountain pen laid out next to it. She’d become enslaved to her own set of procedures and didn’t know how to free herself from the bitter manacles biting at her wrists. They key to them had been misplaced. Lost and never to be found. 

But there was one individual who could help her forge another. 

No.  _ No _ .  _ NO _ . She couldn’t, wouldn’t think like that — not anymore. Down that path she’d find only ruin. Except Lena was weak, and her mind would slip back into old habits — and her fingers would slide inside her slit — every night before sleep. And everytime that happened, as she lay shuddering and filmed with sweat under the covers, her last thought before she fell asleep was for the Rectrix. 

She didn’t want to think why Miss Danvers hadn’t brought the matter up with her first thing on Monday, but presumed this Friday would be her last one at the school. Lena had promised herself she would go quietly, after all the demise was solely her fault, and see to the tasks assigned to her at the best of her abilities while judgement was on its way to be delivered. So, as Friday progressed toward the allotted time, Lena made her peace with things and even managed to find a measure of perverse enjoyment in the way the weather had turned against the school. The stained glass that in sunny days tinged the library in all manner of colors, plunged it now in a state of livid gloom no amount of artificial light seemed able to dispel. Each window was graced with the effigy of a saint or one of Britain’s most notable people, and when lightning flashed outside, the figures were projected — twisted and enormous — on the walls and floor. 

The students who made it to the library to study clustered around the table lamps like moths, and none of them dared to sit alone — Lena had to sternly remind a few overexcited first years that the hallowed space was meant for quiet and homework, not for speculating about the existence of ghosts. 

Still, when thunder crashed right over the east wing’s roof, so loud it made the entire building tremble in response and the girls let out a terrified scream, Lena didn’t have it in herself to shush them. 

The noise had caught her off guard as well, and with her heart seizing in her chest, she found she liked the unfavorable weather  _ so much less _ .

By noon the gardens had been turned into a muddy pool, the pathways into fast flowing streams. The rose bushes were pelted by driving rain until they appeared to be hunkering down in search of respite — what little flowers weren’t ripped away by the strong winds sopping wet and sad-looking. 

By the end of classes, Lena felt as though she were within a ship in danger of succumbing — word had come through that part of the nearby town was flooded, and the school saved itself by virtue of being perched atop a hill. Although, if it kept raining like it had all day, she wasn’t sure how long that truth would hold.

Thus, it was with some relief she climbed even higher, to the Rectrix office atop the old watchtower. 

As she walked, the thunderstorm settled into a low, continuous rumble, almost intending to keep her company with its own form of celestial conversation. Lena’s heart had ceased it’s maddened romp and the fragile peace she’d managed to cling to for the entire day returned to her. 

That was, until the power suddenly went out.

It started as a brown out, the light bulbs that dotted the hallway flickering on the verge of dying before they brightened to a glare. Then, just as lightning forked the sky outside the window Lena’d come abreast of, they cut out all at once, drowning her in darkness. 

The gargoyle, familiar sight and friend, jumped at her from its alcove with the next flare of violet light, and despite herself Lena jumped back, almost losing balance. 

It was all too easy to interpret it as a warning of what was about to come her way, and Lena was invaded by the urge to get it over with.

She flew up the winding staircase, chased by continuous peals of thunder, stumbling once or twice in her haste and bruising her knees on the edge of a step when she couldn’t catch herself in time on one occasion.

“Come in.” 

If every other time she’d hesitated, tonight Lena pushed into the Rectrix’s office as soon as the command was issued, like she had an army of snarling demons at her back. 

“Miss Luthor,” the Rectrix greeted, face still and unreadable. “You are on time today. There was no need to rush.” 

“Yes, Miss Danvers.” Lena managed, after sucking in a breath. “It’s just… the power went out as I was coming upstairs and I thought—” 

“That the best solution was to break your neck on the way here, clearly.” She couldn’t tell whether the Rectrix was attempting sarcasm or not, and she’d rather not risk assuming. “Well? Come in and close the door, or you’ll let all the warm air out.” 

She noticed then that the Rectrix’s office was thick with heat from the fireplace, and hastened to obey. The small comfort wasn’t meant for her, Lena was aware, but she appreciated it anyhow. The school was always cold; cool in warmer months and frigid in winter even with the heat cranked up as much as the furnaces below ground would allow. 

Rushing to the office had kept the chill at bay, but she now realized how much of the dampness had managed to burrow down into her bones. It soaked her through to the marrow, and raised unpleasant gooseflesh on her back. Lena did her best not to openly shiver, and at once tried to mouse her way closer to the roaring open flames without appearing to. 

Once Miss Danvers had indicated that she could, Lena sat herself on the lone chair placed front and center at the opposite side of the desk. Thankfully, the fireplace was close enough to where they sat, heat washed over her and warmed her quickly. One less thing to be worried about. 

The Rectrix watched her, blue eyes alight with flecks of amber in the light of the fire, hands clasped atop the smooth surface of the desk. It was devoid of the usual orderly clutter tonight, as if what was about to pass between them was far to important for the distraction piles and piles of documents would be. Lena’s heart sank through the floor, and her gaze dropped in what she was sure was an admission of guilt on her part. With nothing else to focus on, her eyes inevitably settled on Ms. Danvers’s hands. They were perfectly manicured, her fingernails trimmed short. Under Lena’s gaze those enticingly long fingers twitched, restless and drumming on the wood, following a tune only the Rectrix heard. When the woman shifted, adjusting in her chair, one of her shirt’s sleeves rode up, cufflink shining with a spark of orange-gold in the low light. Lena caught sight of a slim wrist, and what appeared like a mass of scar tissue there. A burn. 

She averted her eyes, the adrenaline jolt of someone who’d been surprised into trespassing rocketing through her body. From the other side of the desk came an intake of breath and the sleeve was surreptitiously tugged down, hiding the old injury from view. 

The silence was absolute, save from the howling of the wind rattling the window panes. Then, the Rectrix subtly shifted again, her shadow falling across the desk as she leaned forward, finally prepared to speak. 

Just as she was on the verge of opening her mouth, Lena forestalled her.

“Rectrix,” she began, hands wringing in her lap. “There is something I need to talk to you about.” Shame was a bottomless crevasse inside her. It yawned beneath her feet and ate her whole. 

Lena spoke at length about the diary and its contents, about the fact she knew she’d overstepped. 

She couldn’t help the note of desire that unintentionally slipped through, knowing it was unseemly. Unprofessional. It surely made her appear gauche in the older woman’s eyes. Crass and flighty as though she were not a teacher, but a student called here to be reminded what was expected of her. Which was not entirely false. 

She paused to draw a breath and a weighty silence opened up between them. A precipice Lena was not worthy of crossing.

The heavier the silence between them grew, the more frantic Lena’s explanations, until the well of her words ran dry, ending in a pitifully small whimper of discomfort. 

“Miss Luthor, please stop.” There was ire on the Rectrix’s face, a tightening of her mouth and a blanching of the skin around her eyes. Eyes which had turned such a stormy color they rivaled the maelstrom outside. “I admit I took a peek within your diary, before I knew what it was or who it may belong to, just to figure out how it could be returned. It was stupid of me,” Lena balked at the notion Ms. Danvers could even fathom calling herself that, but she was not allowed to object, “I could have devised a different method. But that was all it was — merely a look. What you told me now….” For the first time Lena was treated to the spectacle of a faint blush gracing her cheeks. “It far exceeds that.” It wasn’t anger pulling her face taut, Lena belatedly realized, but a deep feeling of discomfort. The Rectrix was suffering a severe case of second-hand embarrassment on Lena’s behalf.

“Oh.” She clamped a sweaty hand over her mouth, fearing that she might become violently sick. “Oh,  _ God _ .” 

She tried and failed to pull in breath. Her lungs seemed to have shriveled down to nothing, and when she finally managed to suck in much needed air, it was like breathing through a straw, or underwater. 

Tears welled up inside of Lena, hot and suffocating, the kind that scalds the throat and leaves one’s eyes raw for ages after — as though an entire desert had been wept. 

Her vision narrowed to a tunnel, at the end of which the Rectrix’s features were naught but blurry lines haloed in gold, but she considered it a mercy. Her self-loathing would be the thing that killed her if she were exposed to the pity that certainly had gathered on Ms. Danvers face. 

Lena pictured the Rectrix watch her make a fool of herself, and privately prayed a bolt of lightning would show her some compassion and strike her down where she was sat. 

Dimly conscious she’d begun to hyperventilate but powerless to stop it, Lena felt the room begin to turn around her. It started with her chair, which felt like it was tilting sideways, but the dizzying sense of motion soon enveloped her entire world. 

Black vines slithered across her vision, the tunnel tightening, constricting until there was only darkness and the near incessant ringing of a thousand bells inside her ears. 

Then, strong hands closed around her upper arms, keeping her from crumpling to the floor, and the world lurched back into focus. 

“Breathe.” The Rectrix was crouched next to her chair, steadying her, voice hushed as though they were whispering inside of a cathedral. “Take a deep breath Mss Luthor, please.” One of her hands moved to Lena’s back, pressed between the wingspan of her shoulder blades and her lungs were coaxed into obeying by her mere touch. “There we go. Now exhale, then take another one. Close your eyes if you must, but listen to my voice.” 

Lena did what she was told, the Rectrix’s quiet commands a lifeline she was eager to follow. It was slow, it was entirely mechanical, but she lost herself to the process and it worked. 

It was frighteningly easy, and she came to realize that should Ms. Danvers order her to strip and bend over her desk, she’d obey without question. 

“Can I leave you alone for a moment to fetch you something to drink?” Ms. Danvers had grasped her chin, and when Lena’s eyes cracked open, she found her examining her closely for a sign that she might faint.

“Yes.” Her mouth felt full of tarmac, but she managed to talk. “Yes, I think so.” 

“Don’t try to stand, please.” The Rectrix pulled away and it was as if the sun had winked out of existence. “On second thought, don’t move at all. The last thing we need right now is a concussion.” 

She waited long enough for a sign of acknowledgment before ducking outside, and Lena was left to sink in the ocean of her worries. 

The belltower looked more and more enticing.

***

For the first time since ascending to the prestige of her position Kara was glad for the small kitchenette one door down from her office. It had been put in by one of her predecessors, and she seldom used it — it was a form of coddling she abhorred, in no small part because the money spent for it could have been used to benefit the students — but it meant she always had fresh tea close at hand. 

As she loaded a tray with cups and a full teapot, Kara berated herself. She should have seen this coming — after all the signs were there.

The manner in which Miss Luthor had near spilled into the office, the way she’d toyed with the narrow band of silver on her thumb, twisting it round and round when she thought Kara was distracted. How she cut off Kara in her haste to explain the contents of the diary to her, while the increasingly frustrated glares Kara had directed her way got ignored.

Her affliction ran far deeper than Kara had first thought, but then again that was what had landed the younger woman in her direct care. 

The anger and impulsiveness would both be corrected. 

She walked back to the office as fast as the heavy tray she carried would allowed, but Ms. Luthor was exactly as she’d left her. 

Without speaking, Kara pressed a cup of tea into her hands and waited until she’d drained half of the contents before letting out a relieved breath. The tea was sweet enough to rot teeth, but in this instance it was exactly what the wayward teacher needed. Already, a splash of color had returned to her cheeks, however faint, and she held herself a little straighter. 

“What happens now?” Ms. Luthor asked after finishing her tea. She put the empty cup back on the tray, and kept her eyes demurely downcast. Kara wished she wouldn’t do that — her eyes were the most striking green she’d ever seen and…

_ Stop it _ . 

It was unusual for Kara to chastise herself twice within minutes. Unheard of even. But Ms. Luthor had the means of getting right under her skin, proving herself to be unique in that regard as well.

“Nothing.” Kara busied herself with tidying up what was on tray, and once satisfied, set it aside. “I read something not meant for my eyes and you…” She pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger. Surely, her words needn't be too harsh — the fright Ms. Luthor had already caused herself was punishment enough. “You have learned the value of silence, I believe.” 

“That’s... that’s all?” 

“No.” Kara clicked her tongue. “Of course not. To the blackboard with you Ms. Luthor. Same as last week if you please.” 

“But—”  _ That  _ had her snap her gaze to Kara, finally, and the green was watery with disbelief. “But—” 

“Now, Ms. Luthor. Unless you’ve given up on the goal we set ourselves.” 

“No, Miss Danvers.” 

Kara allowed a fleeting smile on her lips. It flashed, quicker than lightning and then was gone. “Then you have two hours.” The hourglass, which had sat ignored behind the steaming teapot was brought into view. “Starting now.” 

*** 

It ended in another small disaster. 

This time the Rectrix didn’t hound her. She didn’t get unexpectedly too close, and neither did she compliment her writing. In fact, she did not speak at all. When Lena risked a backward glance — both at the woman and the hourglass — she found the first engrossed in a thick, leatherbound book and the second already half-empty.

“The blackboard’s in front of you Miss Luthor,” she was about to turn away when thunder cracked alongside the Rectrix’s voice. “Unless you’ve suddenly divined how to write with your eyes looking the opposite way.” 

“No ma’am.” Oh,  _ sweet God _ . “I mean, Miss Danvers.” 

“Then I suggest you get back to it.” She’d reached to where the hourglass sat, and tapped its side with one finger. More of the think sand dribbled down. “You’re on a deadline, and it’s getting closer fast.” 

There was a deliberate sense of purpose surrounding everything the Rectrix chose to do, and the small nagging reminder was no exception. 

For a moment, Lena wondered whether the barb was meant to unbalance her, but already the Rectrix had returned to her readings — Homer’s  _ Odyssey  _ from what she could discern of the greek letters worked in gold leaf on the book’s spine. 

It was the cold indifference in the end, which proved to be her downfall. How could the woman just sit there and read after all that Lena had revealed? After her secrets had been laid bare, her depravity uncovered? But Ms. Danvers had brushed all that and her concerns aside with casual words, and although she should be glad she wasn’t being sent to pack her things, the behavior stung. 

Because Lena craved the hardships of a punishment with every fiber of her being, afraid too soft a hand could never help her out of the pit she’d fallen in. 

“Time’s up.” And indeed, the Rectrix’s dry announcement had fallen down her back like the leathers of a flogger. It left pain in its wake, and the shame of complete failure. 

Lena  _ was  _ sent packing then, but just to her rooms and her library duties until the next Friday rolled around.

And when 6pm arrived, the sky a lovely shade of mauve that did nothing to soothe the worries of her soul, Lena climbed the steps with dread. 

Yes. The belltower or unemployment would be preferable. 

“Something different today.” The Rectrix gestured to the blackboard in lieu of a greeting, and she redirected her gaze to find it already full. “I imagine that with your studies you will make more sense of this than me.” 

“It’s—” Numbers always tugged something loose within Lena, and a strange calm descending over her, she strode to the blackboard. Her hand flew to the piece of chalk that waited for her as per usual, and then she froze. “It’s the Carpenter’s rule problem. I can’t— I never— I never could solve it.” She had worked on it with one of her professors at MIT and they had come close, but never managed to unravel it. It had been done by now, but her teaching duties demanded a simpler syllabus and she had failed to keep current on the issue. 

“Quite vexing, wouldn’t you agree?” The Rectrix was by her side in a flash, and would have been shoulder to shoulder with her hadn’t she been so damn tall. “Let’s see what you can make of it in two hours.” 

“That’s impossible.” Lena blurted, eyes round, before she could keep her words in check. “I’d need days. Weeks! Provided I  _ could _ solve it.” 

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way Miss Luthor.” The Rectrix quipped, plonking herself back in her chair. “Show me yours.” 

***

To her credit, Lena did try.

She tried until her hand cramped, asking for a pen and paper that were readily provided when the blackboard turned out to be too small for her thought process. She tried as day clung to the edge of the horizon, as stubborn as she was. She kept on trying until only a few handfuls of sand were left inside the hourglass — which today had been put on a shelf in the periphery of her vision to specifically taunt her — and until the numbers on the blackboard were turned to worms by tiredness, and she could barely read. 

When the chalk, worn thin by the feverish use she’d made of it, finally snapped, so did she. 

“I can’t!” She threw the chalk at the blackboard as though rejecting the whole thing and it  _ puffed  _ as it exploded, a little cloud of ruin. “I can’t! I’m— s— sorry. I’m nothing but—”  _ A continuous disappointment _ . 

She blinked and wasn’t standing in the office anymore, but back within the Luthor family estate, on the day she’d challenged her mother with her dreams for MIT. “A lawyer.” Lillian had hissed, biting her back teeth. “That’s what the family needs and what you will be.” Her tone had been cold, but ultimately dismissive, like she knew that after she had thrown her little tantrum Lena would as always play along. 

Surprising everyone she hadn’t, and no amount of “ _ beating some sense into her _ ” with her late father’s leather belt could change her course. It had, so many times before, but something snapped inside of Lena on that day, and the next morning she was stealing all she could out of her mother’s safe to fly herself abroad and enroll in school. 

Hardship came her way soon after that, but she’d persevered. Thought that it tempered her. 

Now she understood her delusion of grandeur. Dig a little, and she was nothing but the disgraced butt of the biggest, cruelest cosmic joke. Lillian had been right. 

The brass end of a belt should be her only spoils. 

***

Kara gathered the sobbing teacher in her arms, not knowing what to do. 

Everything had happened too rapidly to put a stop to it, what had appeared at first like a regurgitation of Ms. Luthor’s uncontrolled anger melting into something else entirely. 

Before Kara had taken two steps in her direction she’d crumpled to the floor on hands and knees, sobbing with the kind of intensity that cracks the ribs and makes the throat bleed. One look into her glazed, unseeing eyes was enough to tell Kara she was someplace different, and in another time. Having no idea what had triggered such a potent memory, Kara simply held her and willed herself to be what her charge — what Lena — was in need of. 

She was the Rectrix still but her steel was sheathed to be replaced by something that, if not entirely soft, was at least a bit less sharp. 

“Hush now.” Kara cast around for anything she could use to staunch the tears, and when she couldn’t find it readily available, she remembered the clean kerchief in the pocket of her slacks. “It’s alright. You did your best. I know you did.” Her fingers carded through Lena’s hair, smoothed rebellious strands away from her brow. All to no avail. 

The teacher clung to her diminished, what little make up she did use running with her tears. Kara dabbed at it, she cooed, but Lena’s babbling got only more convulsed.

“Please punish me,” she was saying over and over, speaking to her and yet not. “I deserve it. I am nothing. Just a fraud. Please, oh God.  _ Please _ .” 

Was the anger a facade for a much deeper trauma? Kara wasn’t sure, she couldn’t be — not here and now with a green-eyed crisis, writhing desperately on her lap. 

She could, nevertheless, take countermeasures. 

“Listen to me,” she began sternly, calmer than she felt. “I dictate what you are when you present yourself within these walls on the allotted time.” She flattened her hand along Lena’s heaving shoulder and waited her out. It took a few minutes before the truth of her words clicked, but finally the sobs tapered off, and her charge lifted her head to peer at her, sniffling and unsure. 

“As for the punishment you keep asking for—” Kara paused and considered. On the one hand, giving in might feed Lena’s misguided desire. On the other it was possible she’d benefit — what Lena seemed to want from her required a certain level of unquestioning trust. And if she was willing to give that, a day would come where she would accept the truth of Kara’s statements. That she had tried and done her best, and that there was no shame in failing at a task. Only learning that one could apply to the next attempt. Still she had some reservations. 

“You will come back here on Monday evening exceptionally.” As she spoke, she helped the trembling teacher up and into a seat. Not the hard-backed chair she’d occupied, but the leather armchair she kept nearer the fire. The one she sought comfort in after a tough week. It was old and creaky, the leather pliable and worn. Kara hoped that her small gesture would show Lena there was care beneath her stern demeanor, and not cruelty. “We will then speak of… alternative cures.” 

Her eyes flicked to the unassuming cabinet half-hidden in a corner. It was always locked, and what it held within had not been used since her predecessor had retired years prior. 

But Kara knew what was inside, for even though she’d never employ such means on a student, no matter how unruly, it fell to her duties of Rectrix to maintain the objects stored within. The tools were as much part of her role as the title she bore was, and the threat of their existence was enough to have even the mule-headed toe the line.

She glanced at the cabinet as though it could bite her, and when her eyes turned back to Lena she could already feel the handle of the riding crop fit snugly in her hand. 

Green eyes sparkling with residual tears met blue, and Kara wondered if she would be up to the task. If she could become the hand that guides and the closed fist for the wrung out little creature currently folded mousey-small in her favorite chair without failing — without falling — in the process. 

**Author's Note:**

> [join me on Tumblr](https://kendrene.tumblr.com/) for more gay nonsense!
> 
> Also, drop by TheEvangelion's [Tumblr](https://theevangelion.tumblr.com/) for more news on her writing.


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